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Black man to Boulder police: 'That's like racial profiling'

By John Bear

Staff Writer

Posted:
09/30/2016 08:30:16 PM MDT

Updated:
10/02/2016 08:24:19 AM MDT

Boulder police say a black man videotaped by a bystander during an interaction with a sergeant at a bar on Sept. 11 was satisfied with an explanation provided to him, but the man doesn't like the way the situation was handled.

Nalimaakono Lomujalamoi said he was playing darts with friends at the Outback Saloon when he was asked to step outside by Sgt. Brannon Winn, who was looking for a suspect who reportedly groped an employee at the bar the day before.

In the video, which has been posted on Youtube, Winn walks outside with Lomujalamoi and asks someone off camera, "yes or no," then tells Lomujalamoi, "You are good to go. Go back inside. We've got the wrong guy. Thank you. That's it."

Lomujalamoi and Winn have a brief verbal exchange, during which Winn tells Lomujalamoi that police had been "looking for a black guy in a gray shirt" and tells him that he is free to go. Lomujalamoi eventually says, "that's like racial profiling."

Winn hands Lomujalamoi a business card upon request after he says that he wants to file a complaint.

Boulder police spokeswoman Shannon Cordingly said that Lomujalamoi came and spoke with the department's internal affairs sergeant and was happy with the explanation given to him.

"He was happy with the resolution after he came in and spoke to us," Cordingly said. "I'm not sure what has changed. But that was our last contact with him."

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She said police had received a report of a sexual assault along with a description of a suspect that "completely matched" that of Lomujalamoi.

Lomujalamoi contests the police department's take on the meeting, saying he understood what they were telling him in regard to the policy the officer was following, but he does not agree with the way Winn handled the situation.

He said Winn never asked him his name before making him go outside. Winn can be heard in the video saying that he did ask Lomujalamoi's name as the two men stand outside. In a complaint letter, Lomujalamoi wrote that Winn asked "Are you X (unknown name)" and he told the officer no.

He added police claim Winn asked him his name inside before the interaction outside, which Lomujalamoi says is not true.

"The other thing he did was when he realized he made a mistake, he pretty much became angry instead of apologizing," he said. "The best course of action as a human being would have been to acknowledge that he made a mistake. I wouldn't have made a big deal out of it."

Winn wrote in a report that he had apologized after realizing he had made a mistake, although he cannot be heard saying it in the video.

Lomujalamoi wrote in a letter to Boulder police that Winn would not let his friend accompany him outside, and as he walked out, someone in the bar yelled out, "That's not the guy," but Winn did not pay attention to the man.

Cordingly said Winn did ask Lomujalamoi his name, but it was inside a loud bar, so Lomujalamoi might not have heard him and Winn might not have realized that.

She added that an employee in the bar said, "that's not him," but because Lomujalamoi was at that moment a suspect in a sexual assault, he would have been asked to come outside regardless of what people were saying.

"He could have given any name under the sun," she said. "Because he matched the description, he would have had him step outside."

Darren O'Connor, of Boulder Rights Watch, shot the video and said that Lomujalamoi's experience is why Boulder needs an independent citizen's review panel, because only officers accused of more serious infractions will be subject to the professional standards review panel.

He added that the police have too much of a hand in deciding who gets to sit on the professional standards review panel.

"The threshold to get into a formal complaint is higher than I believe it should be to have people's legitimate complaints dealt with," O'Connor said. "Racial bias is one of those."

Police consulting firm Hillard Heintze found in a recent study that black people are twice as likely as white people to be cited or arrested on a misdemeanor charge. Black people make up less than 1 percent of Boulder's population.

The firm advised the department to review some of its practices that could lead to racial disparities, and the department held a public meeting Thursday night to discuss its progress.

O'Connor said that Winn was within his rights to use race as an identifying feature when looking for the suspect, but the officer had a name and Lomujalamoi — who also goes by Joseph — was not a match.

"He simply could have asked for his license and been done," O'Connor said. "But he put him through the shameful experience of marching him out the door in front of everyone."

Lomujalamoi, who works as an engineer, is originally from South Sudan and said he is unaccustomed to the experience of the American black person, so he hopes putting his story out will help draw attention to the problem.

He added that he is not planning on suing the department, and he understands that police have a job to do. He just doesn't like the way the situation has been handled.

"I'm African," he said. "I've never really experienced the hatred and the slavery and the discrimination that black people here have gone through. If me putting this out there helps mitigate some of these issues or this harassment and profiling, that's a good thing."

Cordingly said that police located another suspect later that night who the victim positively identified but did not want to press charges against. According to a police report, the suspect also said that he was being racially profiled. Cordingly said that man was wearing a Denver Broncos shirt.

She said that the department does not agree that it had racially profiled Lomujalamoi, but Winn has given verbal counseling on — in the future — giving someone a little more explanation afterward rather than just sending them on their way.

She added, however, that police have to balance that with locating a sexual assault suspect.

"We could have done a better job in that area," she said. "We looked at it, and we look at ways we can do better. But we don't look at it as an instance of racial profiling, which people have made it out to be."

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